How Your Calorie Intake Correlates with Your Physical Goals

You undoubtedly already know that to have a desired physical look, you need to follow a proper diet and most importantly, control your calorie intake.

Depending on the effect, your calorie intake will vary greatly. First of all, you should know that your total food intake will always consist of three main micronutrients:

Carbohydrates (sugars, fibers, and starches)

Proteins

Fats (saturated and unsaturated)

And when it comes to the desired physique, there are always three main categories, each requiring a different amount of calories:

Maintaining the current weight usually means that you need to eat 13 to 15 calories for every pound of your total weight. For example, a 200-pound man will need to eat somewhere between 2,800 and 3,200 calories every day.

To lose fat, you need to eat from 8 to 11 calories for every pound in your weight. That equals to 1,500 to 2,300 calories every day.

If you want to gain lean muscle, you’ll need to eat a lot more – from 16 to 20 calories per pound. That translates to 3,400 to 4,000 calories every day. However, you also need to eat healthily.

The Three Somatotypes

Life is always more complicated, and the three general categories can never be the golden standard for everyone. You will have to calculate for yourself how many calories you’ll need to consume. To do that, you need to know the three main somatotypes or body types:

Ectomorph is usually a lean, long, and skinny body,

Mesomorph implies a muscular body, or a naturally fit look,

Endomorph means a heavy body, with typically higher body fat levels.

Furthermore, there’s rarely a person with the exact type; we are all usually a combination of the two of the three categories.

Insulin Sensitiveness

Another important thing that you need to consider is how insulin sensitive you are. Men who are less insulin sensitive are naturally more endomorphic, meaning that they are usually heavier or fatter and because of that they need to limit the intake of carbohydrates (hence the whole stigma placed on carbs in many diets today.)

Your insulin sensitivity can be determined from specific biomarkers, like HbA1c and fasted blood glucose.

HbA1c stands for glycated hemoglobin (A1c), and it identifies the average plasma glucose concentration. For every regular person who does not have diabetes, the normal range of hemoglobin A1c is between 4% and 5.6%.

Everything above 6.5% means that you have diabetes. Furthermore, to be truly healthy, you need to strive towards being somewhere between 4.8% and 5.3%.

If you want to see what these numbers are for you, you can always get a glucose meter that can check your blood sugar.

The Takeaway

In essence, you will have to figure out your body type and insulin sensitivity if you want to know the exact calorie intake that will work best with your physique goals. You can do that by experimenting with your calorie intake and keep records as well.

Also, if you want to know more about the role of insulin in your weight and body types, you should read the TOT Bible and get the knowledge that will help you lead a healthy and optimized life.